Oreo (the dog, not the cookie)

OREO, MAY 16, 2009



Yesterday was a sad day for me. Our little Shih Tzu, Oreo, reached a point where the whole family felt inclined to have her put to sleep, as her quality of life had gone downhill so much. For all intents and purposes she was blind, and had lost most of her hearing, too. She slept almost all the time, and had lost control of her bodily functions to the point that we were finding little messes continually. She bit the Hawkes, when they tried to pick her up to get her back into the house as they were watching her one day, and I think that was probably just because they didn’t pick her up in the right way and she was reacting to a sharp pain. She was exhibiting other signs of pain, too.

So, I made an appointment at the Hawthorne Animal Clinic to have her euthanized. They were terrific in the way they handled it. I was allowed to be with Oreo to the end. They just gave her an overdose of anesthesia, and she went to sleep. It happened very rapidly, she had no pain, and felt me petting her as she went to sleep.

I thought it would be fun to celebrate her life and the joy she has brought to us these many years, so I asked the family to send me their favorite memories if they wanted to. Here are some recollections...

* One of my most favorite memories that involved Oreo was Christmas a few years back when you bought a "present" for Oreo...the "Bark Free". Dad thought he was going to beat the system with this one! When he plugged it in, a loud and high pitched sound came from the Bark Free that all of us could hear--not just the dog! Oreo went crazy and we could not stop laughing at the situation! So much for Bark Free, right?

* I remember when we first got Oreo, mom made it a point that us kids were going to be the ones in charge of training her. We pulled a mattress down to the kitchen and spent the first couple weeks sleeping in the kitchen with Oreo in an attempt to train her to be quiet at night!

* Oreo always has to do a couple of full-speed laps around the house after taking a bath.

I still can't believe that Oreo never fell out of the car while hanging out the window--she loved the wind in her hair!

* I remember once I had given Oreo a bath and used...umm...Dad's shampoo on her in an attempt to make her smell "good." Dad had come home from work and claimed that she smelled so bad and I couldn't stop laughing because it was his own shampoo I had used on her...

*One of the great memories i had with oreo was when we were first training her while we lived in orange ca. We had to take turns sleeping on the kitchen floor with oreo making sure that she didn't cry because of the dark, would go to do her "business" at the right time and at the right place and also for just companionship. I could tell that she missed leaving her family and wasn't totally ready for ours, but as she grew and matured over the years we could tell that she was one of us now.

* My favorite and most memorable recollection of Oreo is when we first got her. I remember we started in our family room, and there was a note from Santa telling us to go to another part of the house. When we got there, there was another note and something related to a dog. We had a bunch of these that led us around the house with more and more dog items. The last note told us to go back to the family room, and when we got there, the once-empty fireplace now had a cardboard box in it. And in the box was none other than the young pup Oreo! Santa was so cool, he was able to get the box there with no one noticing.
I remember how Oreo would always come into the family room to be part of the family when it was time for Family Night…

* I remember how we used to have to tackle her so she wouldn't run out the front door when we opened it…and then how scared she got when I threatened her while holding a broom…and then after that all we would have to say was, "Oreo, I'm going to go get the broom!" and she'd come running!

* I remember how she used to manage to be able to get up on the counter and eat the butter when we lived in Orange and had our kitchen table too close to the counter.

* She was so good to be in a kennel for 4 months when we moved to Bellingham.

* The funniest thing I saw Oreo do was when she'd chase a ball we threw in our long entryway in Orange, and she'd slide til she hit the door.

* But the very funniest was on that Christmas Day when dad got that thing to try and make her stop barking when the doorbell rang and it didn't work.

* I remember how she used to go crazy and run back and forth when Katie came home from school.

* She was very territorial…she used to sit on the back of the chair so she could see out the front window and she'd bark like crazy when someone went by. But when she was out on a walk she didn't bark at all. NOT very social with other dogs.

* I remember how she put Theo (a bigger dog) in his place Christmas morning at Stephanie's house.

* So fun…the hunt the kids when on to find her Christmas morning! AND Mom and Dad had been up all night with her, trying to keep her quiet, and she ended up in a hamper, in the car, in the garage!

* She loved to go for car rides and hang her head out the window.

* She hated thunderstorms!

* Oreo would always know when something was wrong. if you were crying, or hurt, she would come and snuggle up with you. That's my favorite thing.

I remember the first time we saw Oreo, when she still belonged to Spike and Kerri Nichols. She was newborn, and we picked her out of the litter as a Christmas present for the kids. No one could avoid loving such a cute little thing!

Oreo loved Christmas, because she loved “fighting” with the wrapping paper. She had fun grabbing a big piece in her mouth and shaking it fiercely, like a wild animal would shake its prey, till that paper fell into submission.

* I think the thing I always found most fun about Oreo was the little game we played, pretending to fight. It took almost nothing to trigger her into playing with me. All I had to do was come at her slowly with my outstretched hands, and she would immediately begin barking and snapping at me. My objective was to grab her and wrestle her to the ground, and her objective was to stay upright and get in a few good bites. It was a pretty fair fight up to the time where she began to lose her vision. I know that in Oreo’s mind, she always won, because she would never, ever, give up. Even if I got her down, she would bounce back up, ready for the next round.

* Oreo was always so protective of the kids and Lisa. Anytime I would wrestle with any of them, she would start barking at me to get me to stop. The kids figured this out and knew that all they had to do was scream, even if I hadn’t touched them, and Oreo would come running to the rescue.

* True to her breed, Oreo’s instinctive job in life was to announce and screen visitors. Any time there was a knock at the door or the doorbell rang, she would begin barking loudly and run to the door. It became a real chore to hold her back as the door opened—she has scared more than one person as she lunged at them! The funny thing is she was always ok with women; it was unknown men she didn’t like.

* Oreo was also very quick to protect us and her territory from other dogs—regardless of their size. More than once, I have seen her confront dogs 4 or 5 times her size if she felt they were threatening. Never once did she back down or become submissive to any other dog. Thunderstorms, however, were something that really frightened her. She would hear thunder long before we could, and would start panting and pacing the house, her heart pounding. So many nights she has awakened us, scratching at our bedroom door, during a storm. And there was no consoling her, she would scratch on every closed door in the house. Holding her didn’t help. The best we could do was put her on a bed too high to jump off of, to keep her from pacing and scratching.

* My last good memory of Oreo is one she gave us just yesterday. Lisa gave her Oreo ice cream for a snack yesterday, and this morning I gave her ham and eggs. Just before it was time to go to the vet, Lisa gave her a bone-treat. She was so full from the ham and eggs she wasn’t eating it, just carrying it around in her mouth. Lisa wanted to get a picture of her. Oreo ducked under the chair she always slept in, came out the other side and headed towards the back door. Lisa took her outside, and Oreo did something we had never observed, in all her years with us—she felt her way to a spot of clear ground, dug a hole and buried the “bone”! It was just too funny. Dogs bury bones with the idea that they will be back to get them. I like to think that Oreo was telling us that she’ll be back, she’ll see us again, someday. And she will.